Costa Rica

Puntarenas (Costa Rica)

Wed, Dec 13th, 2017

We arrived in Puntarenas, Costa Rica – and had an all day tour scheduled.  Our guide was Omar and he was informative, interesting and fun.

Some of the scenery we saw on the way to our first destination…

First stop was a quaint village park where a group of local school children performed some cultural dancing for us. They were adorable and also got the audience to participate. There were many local vendors selling hand-crafted items.

Next we took a drive through the countryside where our guide pointed out interesting landmarks, and explained about the local economy and politics and how many of the homes we were seeing were lived in by many generations of the same family at the same time.

A lot of the homes had rod-iron around them. Our guide explained this was a sign of status because metal work is expensive. The more fancy the iron-work – the more status it gives the owner.

Last stop on the tour was a gift/restaurant stop. They had a man in front creating beautiful paintings and all of the merchandise was local crafts and we wished we had more time to explore – which is something that’s never happened to us before.  We usually look around the required gift stops and are ready to leave before the allotted time is up…this time we wished for more time.  They had local coffee and chocolates and fruit to sample and many items made of rosewood and other local ingredients.

We didn’t have time to try the restaurant but were told they had local fare to try.  We purchased a few treasures.

After returning to the dock, we found more local vendors along the waterfront and did a little more shopping as well.

Next port is Nicaragua!